Observe a laboratory activity or base your answer on past visits. How does your CT conduct a typical laboratory activity? How does he or she open the activity and organize student groups? How do students learn what they're expected to do during the period? Reflect on your reading about inquiry and your experience with the NECAP inquiry task. How did the laboratory activity you observe prepare students for the type of activities that might show up on the NECAP in the future? What inquiry elements would you strengthen? What science practices do you want to stress when you're teaching?
The one laboratory activity I really got to witness and help with was in my middle school classroom dealing with chemicals. This was a major lab that used up a couple class periods where students were to mix 9 different known chemicals and observe/record the results of the mixtures. They were first to make observations of the individual chemicals such as appearance and particle size. They were to record in an organized manner the chemical name, chemical formula. common name and other observations about each chemical. All charts and observations were to be recorded in their scientific journals that stay in the classroom. This gets the students treating the class like a science lab and encourages the students to think like a scientist. This also keeps their observations organized and easier for the teacher to ensure the students are doing the work. Mrs. Zahm has the class organized into 2-4 students per lab bench and these are the groups for the experiment. Mrs. Zahm orgainzed the benches into organized seating based on who works well together and who would benefit from sitting in certain spots. The students assign roles to different group members for the lab. Mrs. Zahm opens the lab classes like she would any other class with a warm-up activity but goes over it quicker than normal because she has to maximize classtime for the experiment.
When students are conducting labs, they learn through doing and experimetation. It uses more inquiry based methonds in learning. They learn about chemicals and chemical mixtures in class then they can see what they learned about through doing a lab. Mrs. Zahm facilitates what the students are supposed to be doing. She starts with the warm up activity giving them 5 or so minutes to complete it then goes over it with the class. After, she has the students all put on lab goggles and 1 or 2 people from each group come get a set of chemicals and well plates. They record the observations of chemical interactions in orgnized graphs they designed in their science journals and write whether a reaction happened or did not and if so, what the reaction may have looked like.
Having the students "think like a scientist" using their lab journals and record observations helps students with the inquiry portion of the science necaps. It gets students looking for patterns deducing information from an experiment. In the inquiry part of the necaps, the students may be provided with the results of an experiment and may need to base conclusions from those results. In the lab, the students had to use a mistery mixture and determine which substances were mixed based on the reaction. This required the students to use their observations from the 36 mixtures they had made from the 9 substances and compare it to the mistery mixture. This encourages students to draw conclusions which is something the necap may ask them to do. They had to organize results into a coherent fashion and make interpretations. Also, after the completion of the lab the students were asked to write a conclusion in their lab journals adressing certain points of the experiment.
I would strengthen inquiry elements such as encouraging students to come up with questions on their own. I want students to be actively thinking about what they are doing, why they are doing and how it affects them. This helps bring real world meaning to what they are doing in class which would enhance their learning. I might have the students incorporate these questions into their conclusion. I would also strengthen their records of their observations by telling students how important it is to record everything they see making sure they knew they would be referencing these observations for their conclusions and assessment of the task. When I am teaching I want to get students making more guesses and hypothesises both formally and informally in class. I will use this as a method to get them thinking like scientists and questioning things around them. I want to stress the importance of good laboratory procedures when the students are conducting labs in the class. It will especially help students with labs in high school if they learn and practice good procedures in middle school science classes.
The one laboratory activity I really got to witness and help with was in my middle school classroom dealing with chemicals. This was a major lab that used up a couple class periods where students were to mix 9 different known chemicals and observe/record the results of the mixtures. They were first to make observations of the individual chemicals such as appearance and particle size. They were to record in an organized manner the chemical name, chemical formula. common name and other observations about each chemical. All charts and observations were to be recorded in their scientific journals that stay in the classroom. This gets the students treating the class like a science lab and encourages the students to think like a scientist. This also keeps their observations organized and easier for the teacher to ensure the students are doing the work. Mrs. Zahm has the class organized into 2-4 students per lab bench and these are the groups for the experiment. Mrs. Zahm orgainzed the benches into organized seating based on who works well together and who would benefit from sitting in certain spots. The students assign roles to different group members for the lab. Mrs. Zahm opens the lab classes like she would any other class with a warm-up activity but goes over it quicker than normal because she has to maximize classtime for the experiment.
When students are conducting labs, they learn through doing and experimetation. It uses more inquiry based methonds in learning. They learn about chemicals and chemical mixtures in class then they can see what they learned about through doing a lab. Mrs. Zahm facilitates what the students are supposed to be doing. She starts with the warm up activity giving them 5 or so minutes to complete it then goes over it with the class. After, she has the students all put on lab goggles and 1 or 2 people from each group come get a set of chemicals and well plates. They record the observations of chemical interactions in orgnized graphs they designed in their science journals and write whether a reaction happened or did not and if so, what the reaction may have looked like.
Having the students "think like a scientist" using their lab journals and record observations helps students with the inquiry portion of the science necaps. It gets students looking for patterns deducing information from an experiment. In the inquiry part of the necaps, the students may be provided with the results of an experiment and may need to base conclusions from those results. In the lab, the students had to use a mistery mixture and determine which substances were mixed based on the reaction. This required the students to use their observations from the 36 mixtures they had made from the 9 substances and compare it to the mistery mixture. This encourages students to draw conclusions which is something the necap may ask them to do. They had to organize results into a coherent fashion and make interpretations. Also, after the completion of the lab the students were asked to write a conclusion in their lab journals adressing certain points of the experiment.
I would strengthen inquiry elements such as encouraging students to come up with questions on their own. I want students to be actively thinking about what they are doing, why they are doing and how it affects them. This helps bring real world meaning to what they are doing in class which would enhance their learning. I might have the students incorporate these questions into their conclusion. I would also strengthen their records of their observations by telling students how important it is to record everything they see making sure they knew they would be referencing these observations for their conclusions and assessment of the task. When I am teaching I want to get students making more guesses and hypothesises both formally and informally in class. I will use this as a method to get them thinking like scientists and questioning things around them. I want to stress the importance of good laboratory procedures when the students are conducting labs in the class. It will especially help students with labs in high school if they learn and practice good procedures in middle school science classes.